March 2019

Only a few years ago, Guatemala was making historic gains in its fight against corruption and human rights abuse. Since then, the country has suffered a severe backlash. A “pact of the corrupt” in Guatemala’s ruling elite keeps pushing legislation that would terminate trials and investigations for war crimes and corruption. A U.S.-backed UN prosecutorial body, the CICIG, has been weakened. High-court rulings are being ignored. Things have gotten so bad that the U.S. government has suspended military aid.

And today, Guatemala has incredibly surpassed Mexico as the number-one nationality of undocumented migrants being apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border.

As a new presidential election looms, Adam talks about the situation with WOLA Senior Fellow Jo-Marie Burt, just returned from one of her frequent visits to the country. See more of Jo-Marie’s recent analysis at:

March 20, 2019

Western Hemisphere Regional

Trump announced that in addition to diverting money from the military reconstruction budget, he would also take $2.5 billion from the Pentagon’s counter-drug funding. But as The Washington Post reported, the counter-drug account currently has less than $100 million in it

Brazil

Thainã de Medeiros, a member of Coletivo Papo Reto—a favela-based media collective fighting against police brutality—reveals changes to how [off-duty vigilante police] militias are operating in Rio de Janeiro

Mexico

Six Central American migrants who crossed from Tijuana through the San Ysidro port of entry had their cases heard at a San Diego courthouse in the program’s first day of hearings on Tuesday. All were told to return to Mexico

I’ll be in the office this morning recording a new podcast. Then I’m going to head home, shut the door to my home office, and work on a list of things that are due soon: a talk I’m giving at NDU Friday, an op-ed I’m collaborating with a colleague on, setting up meetings on Capitol Hill next week and at the border in 3 weeks, and a memo about the border. We’ll see how much I get done; either way, my responses to queries will probably be delayed.

March 19, 2019

Western Hemisphere Regional

“Now that members of Congress can see the potential impact this proposal could have on projects in their home states, I hope they will take that into consideration before the vote to override the president’s veto”

International Organization for Migration spokesman, Joel Millman, says since February 1, 79 deaths have been reported along this route. He says this is nearly three times higher than the numbers reported in the Mediterranean

Brazil

Among the many parallels between their administrations, Bolsonaro and Trump are both taking extreme action to strip the hard-earned rights of indigenous peoples to the benefit of extractive industries and commercial farming

Bolsonaro underscored the difference between his administration and that of former President Dilma Rousseff by stopping by CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, to discuss “international themes in the region,” according to his son

Colombia, Venezuela

U.S. officials see a growing threat from both Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN) and factions of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) that refuse to adhere to a 2016 peace agreement

Guatemala

Despite the international rebuff of the amnesty bill, including a resolution by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordering Guatemala to withdraw the proposal, its supporters say they are not giving up

Reading from a local newspaper report on his show, Barroso chronicled how on Thursday evening a “pollero,” or smuggler, had assembled nearly a dozen migrants at a portion of outdated fencing in the middle of the city of San Luis Rio Colorado

I’m guest-teaching a longtime colleague’s class at George Washington University today, talking about Colombia. Later, there’s a meeting of NGOs working on Colombia. Otherwise, I’ll be preparing my next border field-research trip, preparing a lecture I’m giving at the National Defense University Friday, drafting a memo about the border, and if there’s time (there won’t be), moving ahead on an article for a Latin American think-tank about current U.S. policy toward the region.

Cuba, Venezuela

16 members of Cuba’s medical missions to Venezuela — a signature element of relations between the two countries — described a system of deliberate political manipulation in which their services were wielded to secure votes

Central America Regional, Mexico

By using the direct-bus method, smugglers can eliminate the need for stash houses along the border where they would normally keep migrants under the watch of armed guards before sneaking them across the border

I’m recording an interview first thing in the morning for a radio show at Colombia’s National University. After that, I have more than 3 hours of internal meetings. (I should buy an extra memory-foam cushion for my chair, because I won’t be getting out of it until lunchtime.)

In the afternoon I’ll be in the office, scrambling to prepare a talk I’m giving to a class at GW University tomorrow, put together my next visit to the border three weeks from now, and finish an article for a Latin American publication that will soon be overdue.

A year after her execution, the call for justice for Ms. Franco — a black, gay, feminist Rio de Janeiro city councilmember who was raised poor — has morphed into a rallying cry in a deeply-polarized nation

The anti-globalist, pro-Trump faction of the Bolsonaro administration, which includes his foreign minister, will clash with the more prudent generals, led by Vice President Hamilton Mourão, and the technocrats, represented by the Economy Minister Paulo Guedes and Justice Minister Sérgio Moro

During his seven months in office, Mr Duque has tried to strike a balance between the hard line of his mentor, Álvaro Uribe, a former president who opposes the peace accord, and Colombians who want to preserve it. Now he seems to have backed Mr Uribe’s policy

Cuba

Cuban legal experts told The Associated Press that they expect the government to send the National Assembly between 60 and 80 new laws over the next two years to replace ones rendered obsolete by the new constitution

The two cases highlight the risks faced by Central American migrants in Mexico, where criminal groups have diversified well beyond drug trafficking and now help smuggle migrants north and sometimes extort or kidnap them

Russian oil company Rosneft spent a fortune on joint ventures in Venezuela even though it suspected it was losing out on millions of dollars, documents show. It continued investing, sources say, because the Kremlin wanted to support its ally

Other than lunch with a longtime colleague in Congress, I’m in the office with a long to-do list, as I haven’t been able to do as much writing this week as I’d hoped. I’m also going back to the border in just over 3 weeks, and need to start setting that up.

Brazil, Venezuela

Gen Mourão is a member of the pragmatic faction that shares power with technocrats and ideologues in the Brazilian government. He has often contradicted Mr Bolsonaro’s outspoken sons and Ernesto Araújo, the conservative foreign minister, who want a tougher stance

Mexico

Tony told them that if they didn’t pay, he would take their passports and rip up their paperwork showing they could legally be in Mexico. Tony demanded $250 per person, which amounted to $1,250 for the group of five.

Venezuela

“China hopes that the Venezuelan side can discover the reason for this issue as soon as possible and resume normal power supply and social order. China is willing to provide help and technical support to restore Venezuela’s power grid”

I’ll be in the office this morning, running a bit late finishing a memo about Colombia and an article about U.S. security relations with the whole region. In the afternoon I’m on a call with border groups, meeting with a grad student working on Colombia, and meeting with a philanthropist about Colombia. I may be hard to contact in the afternoon.

The Trump White House sent Congress its 2020 foreign aid request on Monday, and boy is it grim. It’s never going to become law—the steep cuts it proposes will be opposed by both Republicans and Democrats. But it’s still terrifying to see such destructive radicalism coming from an entire branch of the U.S. government.

This makes three podcasts in three weeks. I can’t believe it, either. Here’s the latest (which you can download directly here):

An update from Cristian Schlick of El Salvador’s IDHUCA

El Salvador is inaugurating a new president amid a severe security crisis. Tens of thousands of Salvadorans are abandoning their homes each year—most displacing internally and many moving to other countries—due to gang violence. Despite incipient recent reform efforts, government institutions have been either too absent or too corrupt to protect people.

March 13, 2019

Western Hemisphere Regional

China’s development lending to Latin America and the Caribbean has been larger than lending from the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and CAF Development Bank of Latin America combined

Guatemala

The approval of these reforms would seriously affect victims’ rights to justice, truth, reparation and guarantees of non-repetition. It could also lead to reprisals and attacks against victims, judges, prosecutors, lawyers, plaintiffs, witnesses, experts and others involved in human rights trials

The policy began at the San Ysidro port of entry, near Tijuana, but has expanded within the last week to include migrants crossing at additional ports of entry in the San Diego sector and at the Calexico, California, port of entry

The only viable path out of this crisis is a multilateral process that leads to free and fair elections, in which Venezuelans can choose their leaders. This must include a multilateral plan to address the humanitarian emergency on the ground without instigating armed conflict

The move to vacate the United States Embassy in Caracas was a significant setback for the Trump administration. American officials had previously vowed to keep diplomats in Venezuela to legitimize Juan Guaidó